Now They Are Going After Breastfeeding...

[seer]

You can scientifically survey peoples around the world and do rigorous statistical analyses of what they consider to be good things. You can look at how happy people in different countries are based on a large variety of measures. So yes, science can give you a list of things that people consider to be good things, and analyze how to maximize those things.

No this is not what I asked, I asked why our well being was a good in the first place, why our survival was a good thing. That is a question that science can't and doesn't answer yet it is your fundamental premise. So with all your talk about the need for science to define these issues you have left science and turned to philosophy to even ask the question.

Yes, there are several models currently in use for that. But it is a fairly new field and t's are still being crossed and i's dotted.

Yet I have linked a number of studies that show that religion makes people more happy, content and hopeful than their non religious peers. Now what?

That wouldn't surprise me since you are insane. But in general there's fairly minimal variation among people and people-groups on the subject.
I believe that the majority of the planet's population would agree with the following assertions

You support infanticide and I'm insane? And the majority on people on earth today are religious - so statistically you are the abnormal one.

[Starlight]

besides THAT is not what this study is saying.

I suggest you at least read the journal article itself, it's only two pages, rather than rely on what the biased OP source claims. The article says that they are concerned about people saying that childhood vaccines aren't "natural", and are worried that if medical professionals market breast-feeding as "natural" it will encourage public buy-in to the "natural things are good for you, and artificial things aren't" idea of health and will lead to more people opting-out of vaccinating their children, and provides a few other reasons to avoid marketing things as 'natural'.

There is literally only two sentences in the entire article that mention gender roles, deep in the depths of the article, and those are not the main arguments the article is making nor the primary reason it is suggesting that the "natural" terminology be dropped.

they are upset because it reinforces gender roles.

No, you are upset because the OP linked biased source found a mention of a critique of gender roles somewhere deep in a journal article and then misrepresented it as being what the journal article was about, and you guys are so gullible that your bought their propaganda, and so you are upset because you believed the false claim that their primary purpose was attacking gender roles. When in fact the reality is that they had a whole two sentences on gender roles which they happened to include as a throw-away comment, and you conservative snowflakes were triggered by it.

[seer]

they are upset because it reinforces gender roles.

Yep, period, end of story! And what does "science" have to do with defining gender roles in the first place.

[Starlight]

I can understand using rational thought and science as the benchmark for our behavior.
Living in a society that worships that idol is tolerable.

I would say it is not merely 'tolerable' but in fact utopian in the sense that such a process can literally explore and analyze the different ways of organizing our societies and lives and by trial and error and rigorous evaluation of what actually works in practice as opposed to what some person thought sounded like a good idea (Biblical values, Communism, Fascism, Libertarianism, Free-Market etc) we can arrive at societies which are happier, have less crime, where people live longer lives, where they have a greater sense of meaning and purpose, where they have less loneliness etc. Any metric you want to name, we can potentially optimize.

However, as someone accustomed to that lifestyle I find the ease with which that standard is discarded in the presence of a few tears to be very, very alarming.

I am honestly not sure what you're talking about. I assume you're trying to make a snide comment about liberals in some way, claiming that someone goes 'boohoo' and then liberals drop all their standards of rationality and science. However I'm unable to think of a single instance where I would do that... so I'm confused.

[seer]

Any metric you want to name, we can potentially optimize.

And if religious belief can optimize well being then what?

[Starlight]

No this is not what I asked, I asked why our well being was a good in the first place, why our survival was a good thing.

I'm not totally convinced that yours is.

That is a question that science can't and doesn't answer yet it is your fundamental premise.

It turns out that when you survey people around the world they value their survival. Shocker. Obviously science predicts that because the evolutionary process would disfavor individuals who actively valued their own survival negatively.

I think you confuse yourself by your use of the word "good" and so you run in circles like a dog chasing its tail by asking questions like "why is human well-being a 'good'?" I think that question is a tautology because of how I understand the meaning of the term 'good' and define that word. I suggest you can avoid chasing your tail by not using the word 'good'. Try to express your thoughts and ideas by using other words and avoid terms like 'good' and 'right' and see if it's possible to say the same things or ask the same questions using other word. I think you'll find you can't do so, and you need to realize that's a sign you're playing semantic word-games with yourself.

Yet I have linked a number of studies that show that religion makes people more happy, content and hopeful than their non religious peers. Now what?

You do follow-up studies of why that is. It turns out that church attendance helps people make friends because it is a social event. People who have no friends are less happy than people who have friends. The content of the religion itself tends to have no impact on happiness.

And the majority on people on earth today are religious - so statistically you are the abnormal -unusual- one.

Try not to use normative terms for descriptive things. Rolling five dice and having them be all sixes is 'unusual' or 'rare' or 'uncommon' or 'infrequent' (descriptive terms) but it is not 'morally wrong' or 'abnormal' or 'mentally ill' (normative terms). Keep in mind Hume's useful idiom: "An is does not imply an ought". Describing how the world is - e.g. if something is statistically common or statistically rare, does not tell you whether it ought to be that way or whether that is a state of affairs that is 'good'. I see conservatives on this website making that mistake of terminology regularly, and they too-often use it to condemn minorities as morally bad simply because they are minorities by using loose terminology to slide from descriptions of statistical frequency 'unusual'/'uncommon' into judgement normative terms of 'abnormal'/'wrong'. It's careless use of language which leads to sloppy thinking and illogical arguments. Always keep in mind: Being left-handed or having red hair is statistically 'uncommon' and 'infrequent' but it's not 'abnormal' or 'wrong'.

[Starlight]

And if religious belief can optimize well being then what?

Well when science determines that the teachings of any particular religious text do not optimize human well-being, then that falsifies claims that text makes that those laws were given by an omniscient and benevolent God for the purposes of creating an optimal society. So in that sense science can disprove any religion that makes testable claims about its teachings.

[Starlight]

Liberals are rabidly pro-science... until it conflicts with their dogma, and then they're happy to kick science to the curb. I explored this in another thread where...

...where people laughed at you for not even seeming to understand the basics of the pro-choice arguments. You were like a five year old who'd found a scientific fact and ran into a university screaming "I have a scientific fact! You're all wrong and I'm right because I've got a scientific fact!" And everyone laughed and patted the poor idiot on the head, and were like "yes dear, we obviously know about that fact, and also a thousand others that you'll learn about later. When you're a big kid you'll learn more ideas." And you seriously and truly and honestly thought you'd made a relevant point, and apparently still do. It's cute, in a hilarious and sad way.

I commented on liberals who are afraid to openly admit that a fetus is a human life because it could undermine their stance in favor of abortion.

[Mountain Man]

...where people laughed at you for not even seeming to understand the basics of the pro-choice arguments.

They laughed at me and hoped their derision would disguise the fact that they didn't actually have a counterargument.

And it seems you still don't.

[seer]

Well when science determines that the teachings of any particular religious text do not optimize human well-being, then that falsifies claims that text makes that those laws were given by an omniscient and benevolent God for the purposes of creating an optimal society. So in that sense science can disprove any religion that makes testable claims about its teachings.

That is again not what I asked. Look, I have posted study after study that claim religion brings greater happiness, peace, contentment and hope to the individual. So this is not about whether a particular religion is true or not, but if religion, in general, was shown to optimize well being would you then support religious belief in general?

[seer]

I'm not totally convinced that yours is.

It turns out that when you survey people around the world they value their survival. Shocker. Obviously science predicts that because the evolutionary process would disfavor individuals who actively valued their own survival negatively.

Sheesh! I'm not saying that people don't value their own lives! I'm asking where science tells us if our survival or well being is a good.

I think you confuse yourself by your use of the word "good" and so you run in circles like a dog chasing its tail by asking questions like "why is human well-being a 'good'?" I think that question is a tautology because of how I understand the meaning of the term 'good' and define that word. I suggest you can avoid chasing your tail by not using the word 'good'. Try to express your thoughts and ideas by using other words and avoid terms like 'good' and 'right' and see if it's possible to say the same things or ask the same questions using other word. I think you'll find you can't do so, and you need to realize that's a sign you're playing semantic word-games with yourself.

Then use your own words - what conclusions does the scientific method come to concerning our well being or survival? Does it even have an opinion?

You do follow-up studies of why that is. It turns out that church attendance helps people make friends because it is a social event. People who have no friends are less happy than people who have friends. The content of the religion itself tends to have no impact on happiness.

That is false, if I can find the past studies I posted I will them again - belief in the afterlife certainly has an impact:

To quote Catherine Sanderson

She also says that people who are believers have a certain mind-set; the power of prayer, the belief in an afterlife, the sense that someone is looking after you, that there is a higher power, that things happen for a reason. This mind-set, she says, helps people make sense of tragedy, struggles and loss. One can believe, “I’ll see this person later,” or “God only gives you what you can handle,” or “There is a silver lining in the suffering.” “Religion,” she says, “is about helping other people and having others looking after you.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...=.d2979330013b

So it is not just about community. If you believe in the after life, that there is an overall purpose to life, that there is a God who is watching over you these things certainly do add to well being. Of course that is a logical conclusion. And:

Though beliefs in Heaven and Hell are related, they are associated with different personality characteristics and social phenomena. Here we present three studies measuring Heaven and Hell beliefs' associations with and impact on subjective well-being. We find that a belief in Heaven is consistently associated with greater happiness and life satisfaction while a belief in Hell is associated with lower happiness and life satisfaction at the national (Study 1) and individual (Study 2) level.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/art...l.pone.0085251

Try not to use normative terms for descriptive things. Rolling five dice and having them be all sixes is 'unusual' or 'rare' or 'uncommon' or 'infrequent' (descriptive terms) but it is not 'morally wrong' or 'abnormal' or 'mentally ill' (normative terms). Keep in mind Hume's useful idiom: "An is does not imply an ought". Describing how the world is - e.g. if something is statistically common or statistically rare, does not tell you whether it ought to be that way or whether that is a state of affairs that is 'good'. I see conservatives on this website making that mistake of terminology regularly, and they too-often use it to condemn minorities as morally bad simply because they are minorities by using loose terminology to slide from descriptions of statistical frequency 'unusual'/'uncommon' into judgement normative terms of 'abnormal'/'wrong'. It's careless use of language which leads to sloppy thinking and illogical arguments. Always keep in mind: Being left-handed or having red hair is statistically 'uncommon' and 'infrequent' but it's not 'abnormal' or 'wrong'.

No idiot - when you called me insane I assume that you have some normative idea of what sane looks like (given that it is you that is doubtful). And if you are not comparing me to a to normative standard then your claim is meaningless, if you are then how do you line up with other normative standards? In other words you are hoisted on your own petard.

[JonathanL]

Seer, I can't link to it because of language (it's not that bad, but enough to break the rules), but should check out "Jordan Peterson - The Problem With Atheism" uploaded by Bite-sized Philosophy on Youtube if you haven't already. It's a fairly interesting video (only about 5 minutes) that touches on the same issues that you do here.

[tabibito]

Seer, I can't link to it because of language (it's not that bad, but enough to break the rules), but should check out "Jordan Peterson - The Problem With Atheism" uploaded by Bite-sized Philosophy on Youtube if you haven't already. It's a fairly interesting video (only about 5 minutes) that touches on the same issues that you do here.

Interesting video. Never thought that particular word would break the TWeb rules though.

[JonathanL]

Interesting video. Never thought that particular word would break the TWeb rules though.

I'm pretty sure using "hell" as an expletive is breaking the rules. The word in itself isn't forbidden though, AFAICT.

[seer]

Seer, I can't link to it because of language (it's not that bad, but enough to break the rules), but should check out "Jordan Peterson - The Problem With Atheism" uploaded by Bite-sized Philosophy on Youtube if you haven't already. It's a fairly interesting video (only about 5 minutes) that touches on the same issues that you do here.

That was very good, thanks. And yes he was spot on!